The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu by Charlie English review

This exemplary work tells a remarkable story of the saving of precious manuscripts and explores the meanings of the African Eldorado, but exposes a myth

In April 2012, the jihadist army of the Saharan branch of al-Qaida drove a fleet of their armoured pick-up trucks into the centre of the ancient caravan town of Timbuktu in northern Mali. As black flags were hoisted atop the minarets, and as trapped and terrified government conscripts scrambled out of their uniforms, the jihadists began imposing their own puritanical interpretation of sharia law.Music was forbidden, modest clothing was forced on the women, stoning was imposed as a punishment for adultery and a war declared on unIslamic superstition.

This began with an attack on Timbuktus most revered djinn. Al-Farouk was said to manifest himself as a ghostly figure dressed all in white, with a length of cotton bound around his face in the Tuareg style and riding a white horse. As Charlie English explains in The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu, the djinn was a guardian, looked on locally as a talismanic symbol of the city who for centuries had protected it from malicious spirits, with a monument on a traffic island in the Place de lIndpendence. But for the Salafists of the AQIM al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb he was merely a false idol, and soon after their arrival in Timbuktu, one of the jihadists climbed on to the monument and decapitated the statue of the horseman.

The many mausoleums of the citys saints were the next target: by June, the jihadists had embarked on a full-scale assault on the ancient tombs scattered around Timbuktu. They lectured the townspeople on the evils of their cult of protector-saints, then began to smash the intricate carvings with pickaxes and metal crowbars.

The realisation that Timbuktus fragile heritage was in danger set off alarm bells across the world. The city was once one of Africas most revered centres of learning and the arts. From the 13th century onwards, but particularly during the great days of the Songhai empire, which reached its peak during the 15th and 16th centuries, Timbuktu became the West African equivalent of Oxbridge or the Ivy League, pullulating with scholars busy copying out old Arabic manuscripts and composing new works of theology, history and science.

Yet with the coming of al-Qaida, there was now a widespread fear that this huge treasure trove, the study of which had only just begun, could go the way of the Baghdad, Kabul or Palmyra museums, or the Bamiyan Buddhas. Before long, efforts began to smuggle the most important of the manuscripts out of Timbuktu and to somehow get them to safety in Bamako, the capital of Mali. The story of how this was done forms the narrative backbone of The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu, which consequently reads like a sort of Schindlers list for medieval African manuscripts, a modern day folk tale that proved irresistible, with such resonant, universal themes of good versus evil, books versus guns, fanatics versus moderates.

The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu is published by HarperCollins. To order a copy for 15 (RRP 20) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99.